Proton’s smaller size surprises scientists

[captdude]

Proton’s smaller size surprises scientists
Finding could force revisions in the fundamentals of physics

The following link will take you to the full article that has the first few paragraphs cut and pasted below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38182693/ns ... ce-science

The proton, one of the most well-known and basic building blocks of matter, turns out to be holding onto a few secrets. A new measurement found that the radius of the proton is about 4 percent smaller than previously thought.

Scientists discovered the surprising anomaly in proton size by shooting laser beams at an exotic version of a hydrogen atom, which most often consists of one proton and one electron. The new measurement has improved the accuracy of the known proton radius by a factor of 10, the researchers said.

The finding means that either the theory governing how light and matter interact (called quantum electrodynamics, or QED) must be revised, or that a constant used in many fundamental calculations is wrong, the researchers said.

The scientists detailed their discovery in the July 8 issue of the journal Nature.

 

[dryson]

Welcome to the science of physics. Just one more ***** being taken away from GR and SR as saying that the speed of light in the fastest constant in the Universe. Give it a few years and physics will finally be able to discern the medium that defines the speed of light as being the speed of light. Once the interaction has been discovered then physics will reverse engineer the process thus allowing pratical theories into how to create a fast as light ship or even faster. See what happens when you put your eggs in two for one basket? A new proven find comes along and crushes your ego making you feel about the size of a nib.

 

[orionrider]

Or the new 'more accurate' method, is flawed.
They have just published, let's wait for confirmation before revising the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything.

 

[dryson]

The question is will the newer information be discounted as incorrect just so the image of classical science that has been held as the norm since the 30's will still remain intact because it has become easy for people to use General and Special relativity in their politcal science schemes to control people or is science finally going to beat down the doors into the next area of discovery? Darwinism doesn't just apply to biological systems Darwinism applies to all aspects of science including new discoveries. The old sciences need to realize that with the invention of the PC the old way of thinking has met it's cliff and those that engage in the old world of politcal sciences must now make a decision to either take the leap of faith or continue over the cliff where they will meat their end at the bottom of a rocky ravine.

 

[ramparts]

Dryson, I think you're jumping to conclusions prematurely. Any science result has to be reproducible, and no other team has confirmed this result yet, so we only have one experiment suggesting this. We shouldn't accept any result that only team has found.

On top of that - this experiment, even if it is right (which it very well might be) doesn't necessarily have anything to do with SR, GR, or the speed of light. It would most likely mean that the predictions from quantum electrodynamics, a very separate theory, are flawed.

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

Proton’s smaller size surprises scientists
Finding could force revisions in the fundamentals of physics
The following link will take you to the full article that has the first few paragraphs cut and pasted below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38182693/ns ... ce-science

The proton, one of the most well-known and basic building blocks of matter, turns out to be holding onto a few secrets. A new measurement found that the radius of the proton is about 4 percent smaller than previously thought.

This may be a verification of another theory that protons do not have a fine boundary.
The edge or boundary of a proton is cloudy, fuzzy, (whatever word you like to use) as opposed to a cleat cut hard edge.

As a result, the higher the energy of bombarding particles (LHC), the deeper the particles penetrates into a proton towards the core. If we can use particles with energy higher than LHC, we may find size of protons even smaller.

 

[orionrider]

the deeper the particles penetrates into a proton towards the core. If we can use particles with energy higher than LHC, we may find size of protons even smaller.

Colliders, like the LHC and many others, are able to split protons in much smaller particles: quarks, leptons, bosons.

 

[robotical]

I saw this in Nature, very cool. I would urge caution though; frequently these types of results turn out to be due to a flaw in the experiment or unreproducible. Wait for independent confirmation before getting too excited.

 

[SpeedFreek]

Just one more ***** being taken away from GR and SR as saying that the speed of light in the fastest constant in the Universe.

Can you explain why you think these new findings lead you to this conclusion?

And while I am here... you said the speed of light is "the fastest constant in the Universe", which implies there is a slower constant than light. What might that constant be?

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

Colliders, like the LHC and many others, are able to split protons in much smaller particles: quarks, leptons, bosons.

Is this statement correct?
You have to excuse me, physics is my second language, I may have been living in caves for a while, but as far as i know, quarks can not exist in isolation, there are evidences of quarks, but no one ever captured a 'flying quark' in a fish net (metaphorically speaking). If they did I'd love to read more about it.

My previous post assumed that they still use Rutherford type 'experiment' to determine size of a particle, which is bombarding a target with high energy electrons then size of target is determined from scattering cross-section.

 

[neuvik]

Colliders, like the LHC and many others, are able to split protons in much smaller particles: quarks, leptons, bosons.

Is this statement correct?
You have to excuse me, physics is my second language, I may have been living in caves for a while, but as far as i know, quarks can not exist in isolation, there are evidences of quarks, but no one ever captured a 'flying quark' in a fish net (metaphorically speaking). If they did I'd love to read more about it.

My previous post assumed that they still use Rutherford type 'experiment' to determine size of a particle, which is bombarding a target with high energy electrons then size of target is determined from scattering cross-section.

Quarks were mathematically identified in the 60s, and later Fermilab was able to produce them in 1995.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beaml ... ithers.pdf

Enjoy.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I should point out that no actual measurement is made of the size of the proton. The size is calculated from using a formula to calculate the "rms-radius" of a proton with data collected using atoms consisting of a proton and a -muon. Since the -muon is ~ 200 times heavier than an electron, this enhances the effects of the size of the proton on the muonic S states. Which is what they actually measure.

From Pohl, et.al. Nature 8 July 2010:

"Our result implies that either the Rydberg constant has to be shifted by 110 kHz/c (4.9 S.D.) or thr calculations of the QED effects in atomic hydrogen or muonic hydrogen atoms are insufficient."

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beaml ... ithers.pdf[/url]

Enjoy.

Thanks for the link. From the pdf file
Though quarks had continued to elude direct detection, they can be violently scattered
in high energy collisions. The high energy quarks emerging from the collision region are subject to the
strong interaction as they leave the scene of the collision, creating additional quark-antiquark pairs from
the available collision energy (using E = mc2). The quarks and antiquarks so created combine into
ordinary hadrons that the experiment can detect.

There is no direct detection of quarks. Yes , it seems they broke up a proton and then they detected K and Pi particles. Which they explained as formed from various quarks. Please note, I'm not denying quarks, I'm just poiting this out. It seems quarks are theoretical in origin, and again they used theory to explain K and Pi particles as evidence of quark.

Our result implies that either the Rydberg constant has to be shifted by 110 kHz/c (4.9 S.D.) or thr calculations of the QED effects in atomic hydrogen or muonic hydrogen atoms are insufficient."

If Rydberg constant is changed, shouldn't there be a chaos in Sptectrum world? Which is heavily used in astronomy.

 

[neuvik]

That specific quote is concerning earlier work done at the CERN. Keep reading past that as they sum up the rest of the experiments and techniques.